


The Importance of Ethnic Folkways

by Oberwald



Series: Cheery and Bashfull (Slight AU where Raising Steam Never Happened) [3]
Category: Discworld - Terry Pratchett
Genre: F/M, Fluffy friendships, Gen, Work friendships, engagements, ethnic folkways
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-31
Updated: 2017-10-31
Packaged: 2019-01-27 02:36:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,657
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12571852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Oberwald/pseuds/Oberwald
Summary: Some of the dwarf watchmen congratulate Cheery!





	The Importance of Ethnic Folkways

**Author's Note:**

> This follows immediately after "The Set-Up" and some months before "Of Weddings and Weldings." I think you can read it on it's own, though. I'm not sure if there is a way to reorganize the order of stories in a series. It's not, like... critical to the plot though. It's just sweet and fluffy.
> 
> I'm sorry-not-sorry for flooding the Discworld-fanfic-reading-community with ridiculous Cheery fics.

Sam Vimes sat outside Teemer and Spools with his orderly and head of forensic alchemy, Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom, sitting net to him. He chewed his sandwich thoughtfully while Cheery slurped some rat-minestrone soup. 

They were waiting for Sergeant Angua to finish examining the place. Sergeant Angua, the Watch’s resident werewolf, was very, very good at examining crime scenes, provided she had space to run around with her nose on the ground. And so all the other watchmen had abandoned the scene for a few moments and were taking the rare break to eat some lunch and drink some coffee. Everyone besides him and Cheery had ran away from the scene to escape to nearby cafe.

He tried to ignore the fact that Otto von Chriek was taking iconographs of the stagnant crime scene and him and Cheery, just sitting. He could see the headline now, FORGER STEALS PROPRIETARY MINT INK FROM TEEMER AND SPOOLS, WATCH SITS AROUND. Although “proprietary” wouldn’t fit into the headline, so it was bound to be stupider. Well, at least Otto wasn't inside, taking pictures of Angua, Vimes thought glumly to himself.

Vimes knew, deep in his stomach, that this was going to be an extremely irritating case. Paper had been stolen from Teemer and Spool’s almost a year ago, but it hadn’t been the _right_ kind of paper, the paper that the Royal Mint used to print paper money. That paper, that _special_ paper, everyone knew, was kept in the Mint itself. Vimes had wondered at the time if the first crime had just been a set-up, a way to case the joint, to later come back and steal a sack of the more valuable stamps. 

So he had put extra watchmen on Teemer and Spools, but then there had been that business with the…well, the damn football match between Unseen University and Brazeneck College. And that had taken a lot of manpower. And now… here they were. Proprietary ink, used specifically on the one-dollar bills, had been stolen. He hadn’t even realized they stored extra gallons of that ink at the actual Teemer and Spools storefront. Neither had Vetinari. He had been very, very angry to hear that ink had almost certainly gotten into the hands of a forger. At the very least, he had directed all that anger on von Lipwig, which would have been quite funny to witness if Vimes hadn’t been so angry himself.

“We lost manpower to a football match, Cheery,” Vimes said irritably, shaking his head.

“To be fair, it was a football match between wizards, sir,” Cheery said carefully, taking another slurp of her soup. “Wizards who weren’t allowed to use magic.”

“We didn’t even go inside the stadium and we _still_ lost manpower!"

“And Vetinari wants us to have watchmen inside next time,” Cheery continued, glumly. “I hear Bugarup University wants to make a team.”

“Ugh,” Vimes said, disgusted. His eyes traveled over to a small huddle of dwarf watchmen, who had just returned from the cafe, carrying pack lunches and standing close together and conspiring about something. Occasionally one of them would snicker and look over towards them. 

“Cheery,” Vimes said quietly, nodding to the huddle. “What are those dwarfs talking about?” 

Cheery hesitated for a moment.

“No idea, sir,” she mumbled, taking another gulp of her soup.

“You’re a bad liar, Cheery,” Vimes said, frowning at her. 

“Yes, sir.”

Vimes opened his mouth to say something, but at that moment Corporal Kneebreaker separated himself from the little huddle and hurried over to them. 

“What is it, Corporal?” Vimes barked.

“Erm… are you and Sergeant Littlebottom busy at the moment, sir?”

“Busy? Busy? No, not at all, we’re just sitting outside of one of the biggest crime scenes of the past six months, but, no, we’re not doing much at the moment, are we, Sergeant?” 

“Nope,” Cheery said, taking another little bite of her soup. Vimes gave her a look. He could swear that Cheery was trying to hide a small little smile.

“Er… time for an ethnic folkway?”

“What?” Vimes demanded. He glanced at Cheery again, who was now…was she blushing slightly? “What’s going on?” he demanded. 

“Well…” Corporal Kneebreaker said, and now Vimes could see a small smile on his face, too, “it’s a bit awkward, really.”

“Oh, really?” Sergeant Littlebottom said dryly, taking another bite of her soup.

“Well, there’s a particular ethnic folkway, Commander, in Dwarfish culture, where if you notice a fellow dwarf has gotten engaged, _seriously_ engaged and meaning to go through with the wedding and everything, by way of noticing they have a ring on their first finger on their left hand," Corporal Kneebreaker explained, grinning, "you get another single dwarf to ask them to go courting. As a joke, really. Because then they have to say no and them announce why they can’t. And who they’re engaged to, see?” 

“That seems relatively straightforward,” Sergeant Littlebottom said calmly, taking another little bite of soup and looking ahead. “I can’t imagine what the confusion would be about _that_.”

“Do dwarfs often get engaged without meaning to go through with it?” Vimes asked, startled.

“Well, yes, sir. Then the ring goes on the first finger of the _right_ hand for engagements like _that_.” Corporal Kneebreaker said, sounding nonplussed.

Vimes stared at Corporal Kneebreaker, and then stared at Cheery. Just yesterday he had wandered into the alchemy office in Pseudopolis Yard to find Cheery blushing and standing very very close to that liberal grag, Bashfull Bashfullsson. And later she had told him, sounding shocked, that she thought Bashfull was telling her he loved her. And then she hurried away once they were done last night, instead of hanging around with Carrot and Angua like she usually did. He craned his head to look at Cheery’s left hand, curled around her flagon of soup, and did indeed see a thin little gold ring on her first finger. Before he could stop himself, he found a grin spreading across his face, and slapped Cheery on the back.

“Yeah, well,” Corporal Kneebreaker continued, invigorated by the fact that Vimes wasn’t yelling at him and had even _smiled_ , “but the problem in a situation when you’re in a ranked situation, it might not be appropriate for someone of a lower rank to even _jokingly_ ask out a senior officer, right?” 

“Sergeant Thistlehorn is literally right over there!” Cheery said, now grinning at Corporal Kneebreaker and nodding towards the little huddle of dwarfs on the other side of the street. “Look, he just _waved_ at me. What is he, scared?”

“Well, there’s the thing, Sergeant. He’s not single. He’s engaged.”

“What? To who?” Cheery asked, surprised. “When did that happen?”

“To thon welder who works for Madame Sharn. Dov Anviler. Last week, only.” 

Vimes looked over to the clump of dwarves and saw Sergeant Thistlehorn wave again and whistle at the two of them. 

“Well, so I’m next in rank…” Corporal Kneebreaker continued.

“All right, all right, get on with it, Corporal,” Vimes said gruffly, trying to hide his smile. 

“Wanna go for a drink with me someday, Sergeant?”

“Sorry, I can’t,” Cheery said sweetly, blushing slightly. “I’ve gone and gotten myself engaged to Bashfull Bashfullsson.”

“Oho! A Grag, even!” Corporal Kneebreaker cried happily, leaning over and - to Vimes’s astonishment — gave Cheery a brief kiss on each cheek. “Come on, come on, the lads all want to congratulate you. If... if that's all right, Commander.”

Cheery gave Vimes a little sideways look.

“Go, go,” Vimes waved at her, “Gods know the ethnic folkways have to be followed. But hurry up, Angua will be done soon.”

Cheery stood up and wandered over to the small group of dwarves, who cheered when she came over. They all planted a kiss on both of Cheery’s cheeks. Cheery, he noticed, did the same to Sergeant Thistlehorn. He had never seen dwarfs do _that_ before, he thought to himself. 

Wait. Something clicked inside of him. 

When he had told Carrot about him and Sybil, Carrot had _dropped_ the files he had been carrying, embraced him, and planted a kiss firmly on each of his cheeks. Vimes had stared at him, open-mouthed, while Carrot had beamed at him. 

“Um… thanks, Carrot,” Vimes had muttered, slowly backing away from him, as Carrot had offered some tearful congratulations. He had thought that had just been Carrot being… _Carrot_. 

“Do you know to whom she haz gotten engaged?” Otto Chriek hurried over to him, and was, to Vimes’s horror, taking iconograph after iconograph of the group of dwarfs congratulating Cheery.

“I’m not telling you!” Vimes exclaimed. 

“Ah, Vimes, alvays reluctant to talk to zee press,” Otto said, smiling at him. “Dwarvs!” He called over to the huddle. “Who iz the happy dwarf-to-be for Mizz Littlebottom?”

“Grag Bashfull Bashfullsson!” one of the dwarves yelled over at him. 

“Care to make a ztatement, Zargeant?”

“No!” Cheery yelled back, to much raucous laughter from the little gaggle. 

“Dwarvs _like_ it when ze papers know about their engagements,” Otto said to the stunned Vimes. “Zese days zey have zer own little paper for it, even. Zey are a very romantic people, deep down. Zey _like_ veddings.”

“Hmm…” Vimes said, looking over at the small group of dwarfs. The other non-dwarfish watchmen on duty were starting to come back from their lunch break and joined the huddle to see what the fuss was all about. Chattering and congratulations were passed all around. 

When Cheery first arrived in Ankh-Morpork and started wearing lipstick, Vimes thought to himself, he very much doubted a bunch of dwarfs would be so happy to kiss her cheeks. _How things change_ , he thought to himself, smiling a bit, _and how old I feel_. But right now, he didn’t even mind feeling old.

 _Click!_ Otto’s iconograph went off, pointed at him. 

“Zat was a very nice expression, Commander!” Otto said, who quickly retreated a few steps back as Vimes started yelling at him.


End file.
